


The Broken But Strong

by BlakeWolf



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Bisexuality, Character Death, Death, F/F, Gay, Gay Panic, Inspired by The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), Lesbian Character, Minor Character Death, Romance, Walkers (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:28:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlakeWolf/pseuds/BlakeWolf
Summary: When Clementine and AJ are moving around never stopping they crash into a couple of school kids lives.
Relationships: Clementine & Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running), Clementine/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	1. First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so uh, new story until I can finish up the chapters for the previous stories, don't worry they haven't been abandoned.

(Clementine’s Pov)

I looked over to AJ as he sat next to me in the front of the car, I had my hand over his as we shifted the gears into thirty and he smiled at this.

“I did it.” He says as I take my hand off of it and I put it back on the steering wheel. I smile at his excitement and I look at him with my good eye.

“Yea you sure did Goofball, when you get taller, I’ll let you in this chair.” I tell him and he just looked up at me and his smile got bigger if possible and god did that make me feel happy.

“Awesome.” He says and I chuckle as I keep driving.

“So, where we headed now?” He asked and I looked back to the road.

“Well, we’ve been heading north and we passed a sign saying we were in Virginia, you should pull the map from the glove box.” I say and I hear him open it and the paper crumple a bit. I look to him again then back to the road.

“You remember what I taught you about the maps?” I asked.

“Yep…. uh.” He says and I hear the map move a bit so I take a look at him and see that he has the map upside down.

“The map is upside down Goofball.” I say.

“…. I don’t like Goofball.” He says and I look at him sadly.

“Well…. Would you rather I call you shitbird?” I joked.

“No…. AJ is fine though.” He says and I sigh a bit.

“you know I’ve always called you Goofball…. Why the change now?” I asked honestly.

“I’m grown.”

“Is that right?” I asked.

“Yep… I can take care of myself you know.” He says and I rubbed my neck a bit.

“I know you can bud…. But you need people to help you sometimes, it’s not a bad thing you know…. When I was younger I always needed help.” I tell him.

“Like Lee?” He asked and I nod slowly.

“You know, he trusted me a lot, when things got tough, he trusted me to make some tough calls, he didn’t want me to go to Crawford…. I know he didn’t but yet he trusted me…. Even when he.” I stop as I watch the road and leaned forward a bit.

“But do you trust me?” AJ asked and I nodded a bit.

“I do…. But there are some things you should never have to do if I can do it myself you know…. People rely to much on a kid and… bad things happen to them or the kid.” I say.

“Like you and your eye?” He asked and I nod.

“Yea… like me and my eye…. Some adults just don’t care if you’re a kid…. They just don’t…. and I don’t want what happened to me, happen to you…. Do you understand?” I asked.

“Yea, I do… but at some point, I’m going to have to make some calls that you can’t.” he says and I don’t say anything. I hear his stomach growl a bit and I chuckle.

“Hungry hu?”

“Yea, a little.” He admits and I nod.

“The chips we found last time should still be in the back if you want, just let me.” But before I could say anything else he unbuckled himself and went into the back seat and I stopped slowly as I look at him.

“Alvin Lee Junior, you don’t do that you hear me.” I say loudly and he looked to me scared and I stop as I sigh.

“Just…. let me pull over next time ok?” I asked and he nods as he gets back in the front seat and I look at him. I start driving again and I look to the road.

“…. I’m sorry.” He says but I don’t say anything.

“Clem… are you mad?” He asked.

“A little…. But scared…. You just can’t do that ok? What if a walker popped out of nowhere and I swerved?” I asked.

“I would have been fine.”

“No… Kenny wasn’t.” I say as I drive.

“I... I forgot sorry.” He says and I look to him and I pat his head gently. He had Kenny’s hat on and I wanted to cry a bit but I didn’t.

“You were to young when it happened…. Why do you think I have rules for the car?” I asked.

“Cause you don’t want me to get hurt?” He asked and I nodded.

“Exactly…. I just want to keep you safe that’s all…. Rebecca would be pissed if anything happened to you.” I say.

“But it was my fault, my mom shouldn’t be mad at you for my fault.” He says.

“But I’m your big sister, I know better I have to keep you safe.” I tell him.

“But I have to keep you safe.” He says and I look at him then to the road.

“But I’m the one who has been raising you since you were a baby…. I should know better.” I say.

“You let David take me.” He says and my eyes go wide as I look at him a bit mad.

“You have no idea what I did, you were to young, I didn’t let him fucking take you, I fought for you, I looked for you, I went to the ranch to save you, I killed people just to get you back, I did things someone my age should have never done, but I did it for you, you’re all I have left in this world, all my friends are dead or missing or worse and I just…. I never wanted him to take you, I stole medicine from them so you could get better, because that fucking piece of shit doctor and David didn’t have faith in you, they wanted you to die but no, I couldn’t let that happen, I…. I just.” I tried to say but I stopped talking and looked to the road sadly and I don’t say anything else. AJ doesn’t speak to me either and I just drive for a good while until I get to another train station. I stop slowly and look to it.

“We going to do it?” He asked and I think a bit and I nod.

“Yea… we look see if there is anything, if not we keep going.” I say.

“But if we do?” He asked as I handed him a knife.

“We pack it in the car and we keep going.”

“Could we stay?” He asked and I think a bit.

“I don’t think so.” I say as we get out the car and I go in the back and grab my bag and we go looking.

“Ring if you’re friendly….. what does that mean?” AJ asked and I look at him a bit.

“Means they shoot first.” I say and I go up to the bell and think as I ring it. Only thing that happed was a few walkers came out of hiding and I sigh as I look at them.

“Stupid walkers.” I mumble as we head up to them and kill them. I look at AJ as we look around and I see some water and think as I put some in my canteen and try it. I regret that choice because it was really bad, so I spat it out and coughed a bit, I also here AJ laugh and I look at him and smile.

“Want some?” I asked and he shakes his head while smiling.

“Nope, I’m good.” He says and I chuckle as I watch him looking at an old tire swing.

“That’s a swing bud.” I tell him as I walk up to him.

“Oh… So, it’s not a monster trap?” He asked and I chuckled as I pushed the swing a bit.

“Nope, not a monster trap, you’re supposed to sit in the tire and someone pushes you from behind making you go in the air a bit, god I had one of these at my home… I loved it so much.” I say as I look at the swing and I remember playing on it while Sandra pushed me from behind. I frowned a bit at the memory and I look to the train station.

“I’d like to swing on it…. When it’s safe though.” He says and I nod a bit.

“Sure, that sounds like a plan.” I tell him as we go up to the door of the station building and I look in the window then to AJ.

“Alright, what do we do when we get to a new place?” I asked.

“Always look for a way out.” He tells me as he remembers our rules.

“And?”

“And look through the windows first before entering a building.” He says and I nod as we head inside and I look around a bit.

“Hmm, I only know this door I don’t see anywhere else.” He says and I nod.

“That’s true…. Alright that’s what we have to work with.” I say and turn to see two walkers sitting in chairs and I look at them then to the window.

“I didn’t see them.” He says and I nod.

“Neither did I.” I admit as I walk up to them and I see a bottle of poison and a note.

“Please, leave us alone, we wanted this.” I read and looked to the walkers.

“Why would they do this to themselves?” AJ asked and I look to him then to the walkers again as I sigh.

“They gave up, but I have no clue why.” I tell him and I look at the ticket booth area and I walk up to it and look inside to see a mattress and some blankets.

“Look they have a key, could be for the door.” He tells me and I look to him then I go and see the key on the walkers. I think for a bit and shake my head.

“We have to kill them to get it.” He says and I nod a bit.

“Yea but…. they asked as people to stay like this.” I respond.

“But they’re dead, they’re monsters now, there’s no need to make them live like this.” He says and I rubbed my neck a bit.

“You said you wouldn’t want this to happen to you.” He says and I look to him.

“But they wanted to stay like this.” I tell him.

“But we need the key.” He argued.

“We can find another way, AJ you have to understand there are people that would like to be walkers.” I try to explain.

“I think it’s stupid.” He tells me and I look to the Walkers again.

“AJ can we please not argue about this, besides this is going to teach you how to think on what to do if the key wasn’t here, new learning experiences.” I try to explain to him and he looked at me.

“But we have the key Clem, you’re not making any sense.” He tells me.

“I… alright fine.” I say and I take my knife and I stab one walker in the head, when that one was down and I had taken the knife out the other walker grabbed my arm weakly and I stabbed it in it’s head as well. It took me two tries and I finally killed it and AJ grabbed the key as he went and opened the door to the booth. I took my knife out of the Walkers skull and I walked over to AJ as he grabbed a can of peaches and he looked to me.

“Look Clem, it looks kind of like you.” He says as he shows me the can and I grabbed it from him to see that little girl on there and I look to AJ.

“You know, your dad said the same thing to me.” I tell him.

“Really?” He asked and I nodded.

“Him and Walter both said it, you know I hated that they compared me to this girl.” I say as we look around and AJ finds some bullets.

“Why is that?” He asked and I shrugged.

“No clue, I was eleven and just didn’t like that they compared to me to her.” I tell him and he nods and I look around more.

“What’s this?” He asked as he pointed to a crib and I look to him.

“That’s a crib, it’s were babies sleep until they get older.” I explain to him and he looked to me confused as he looked back to the crib.

“I didn’t sleep in one of these.” He says and I chuckle.

“Nope, you fit inside a small crate just fine when you were born.” I tell him and sigh as I dropped the can and it rolled a bit on the ground as I look as it hit the mattress.

“What’s that?” He asked and I went to the mattress as I moved it away to see a trap door.

“Secret floor door.” He says and I chuckle as I opened it and we both saw a lot of food.

“Holy shit.” I say and then a grenade pops out of nowhere.

“Fuck it’s rigged.” I say as I slam the door and I grab AJ before the bomb went off making us fall into the other room. I got up after a bit and looked to AJ and we heard Walkers.

“Shit, get to the car.” I say as I got up and kicked the door in as we ran out. I saw a few walkers and looked to AJ.

“Go up I have them.” I tell him and he does as told and I kill a few walkers. AJ was able to trap one under the door and I killed that one and we ran to the car as fast as we could. I threw the bag and knife in as I was about to close the door a walker comes up and I try to grab the knife but AJ shoots it in the head and I quickly shut the door as I put the key in the ignition. I was able to start up the car and drive off a bit before another walker gets on the hood and I swerve a bit as I try to get it off. It finally flies off but before I could straiten the car out, I was going to hit a tree head on so I turn the wheel fast and it was a big mistake, we fell down a steep hill and the car flipped a few times. My head hit the steering wheel and I blacked out for a short while before I woke up a bit to see a few walkers coming to the car. I move a bit and unbuckle myself as I fall to the roof only to look and see AJ gone.

“Fuck…. AJ.” I say as I look around and move out the window of the car I look and see a walker get close and as I was about to grab my knife and arrow was lodged in its head and I lean back on the car a bit as I felt my leg burn and I look to see blood.

“FUCK are you ok?” I hear and turn to see this girl with blond hair.

“A kid, where?” I asked.

“Your boy is fine, my friend Louis has him can you walk?” She asked and I move my leg a bit and I nod.

“Alright come on quick.” She says and I follow her as more walkers come at us. It wasn’t long till we were away from the walkers and I heard an explosion and I groan a bit.

“Fucking great…. Just…god damn it.” I mumbled.

“Keep swearing like that and your boy’s going to pick it up.” The girl says and I shake my head.

“He knows better than to swear, I told him so.” I tell her.

“Sure, but he’ll do it one day.” She says and I stop a bit due to my leg burning.

“You ok?” She asked as I looked to her and I nod a bit.

“I’ve been through worse.” I say as I started Walking again and so did, she.

“Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself, I’m Violet.” She says and I smirk.

“The flower or the Color?” I asked and she looked to me a bit confused and I rubbed the back of my head.

“Uh, I suppose the flower.” She says.

“Sorry I uh…. Heard someone ask that once with a boy named Duck…. Dodging or quacking.” I say and chuckle a bit and she laughed a little.

“Ooooh ok, I got it.” She says and I nod.

“Uh… I’m Clementine.” I tell her.

“Nice to meet you Clementine.” She says and turns to face me but then stops as she looks at me a bit.

“Uh.” I tried to say and looked to the side of my head.

“Shit, your head is bleeding.” She says and I look to her.

“If you start to feel dizzy or anything just tell me, I need to tell Ruby just in case.” She says and I nod a bit as we keep walking, she keeps a close eye on me and we get to this gated area and I look to it a bit.

“Welcome to Ericson’s.” She says.

“Hmm, never heard of this community.” I say and she laughed.

“Community? The hell is that?” She asked and I looked to her confused as she let me in the gates and I look around.

“Uh… it’s where people live uh like Richmond and Wellington.” I explained.

“Uh what?” She asked.

“You…. You have no idea what those places are?” I asked and she nodded.

“None of us do, I mean we’ve lived here since the whole Dead heads started walking around.” She says and I look at her.

“Eight years? You’ve been here for eight years?” I asked and she looked at me.

“Uh, why don’t we get you checked out before you have a big mind blow.” She says and this redhead short girl comes up to us.

“Clementine, this is Ruby, Ruby is basically our doctor here.” She says and I look at her a bit chocked.

“Wait where is the adult?” I asked and I hear some laughing.

“No adults here.” This boy says. He had a messed-up mullet as he wore a Leatherman jacket.

“Uh, pardon? You’re joking right?” I asked.

“Hey let’s get you checked out, then we can answer your questions.” Ruby says.

“Wait, where is AJ?” I asked.

“Your boy? He’s with Louis right now, being calmed down, you can see him once you get checked out.” The boy says.

“Uh… I didn’t catch your name.” I say as I am taken over to a picnic table and I sit down as Ruby looks me over.

“Oh I’m Marlon, I’m the leader of this group.” He says and again I look at them as if they’re crazy.

“But… you’re kids.” I say.

“Well you are too, but you’re taking care of a kid on your own I presume.” Marlon says and I look at him.

“I…. you got me there.” I say and I hiss a bit as Ruby stitches my brow a bit.

“Sorry.” She says and I nod a bit.

“I should be use to it by now.” I mumbled.

“Tell me about it…. Need your eye checked on?” Ruby asked and I shook my head no.

“Nah, it uh…” I stopped talking a bit and looked down.

“Can’t be that bad.” Marlon says and I look to him.

“Well, seeing as there’s just a hole where my eye use to be I’d say it’s pretty bad.” I say chuckling a bit.

“What is so funny about that?” Ruby asked as she finished and I look to her.

“Uh, sorry Dark humor is the only way for me to cope with it I guess.” I say and look down.

“Where is AJ?” I asked once more.

“Music room, I’ll take you there.” Violet says and I stand up a bit, but I felt a bit woozy and my vision was spinning before I fell over as Violet ran up to me. I have no clue on how long I was out of it I know I woke up but then I’d go right back to sleep. When I finally did wake up fully, I look to see my hand duck taped to the bedpost and I quickly tore it off and looked around just for the door to open and I saw Violet.

“Holy shit, you’re awake.” She says and the door opens more and I see AJ and I get up from the bed as he runs to me. I hug him tightly and he hugs me back as best as he could.

“Clem you’re ok.” He says and I nod.

“Y-yea I’m fine…. I’m fine.” I tell him and we pull apart and I look him over.

“You sure gave us a scare.” I hear and look up to Violet.

“Sorry.” I say as I get up.

“It’s cool, least we know now that you’re ok…. Uh Ruby had to check you to make sure you weren’t bit you know, I mean I knew you weren’t but she had to make sure.” She says and I nod.

“I told them to make sure.” AJ says and I look at him and chuckle.

“Oh, you don’t trust my ninja skills?” I asked and he posed like a ninja which got a laugh out of me and Violet.

“Hey uh, I brought some food for you so uh.” Violet says and I nod as she comes up to us and sets the food on the desk and I sit in the chair.

“Thanks.” I say to her and she nods.

“No problem, Ruby said you probably passed out from the lack of food, once your boy here said something about you not eating for a few days.” She says and I look to AJ who looked at me then to the ground as if he thought he did something bad.

“No, it’s a good thing you told them AJ.” I tell him and he nods as he sits on the bed.

“Well I should get going, Uh Marlon left your bag in his office AJ knows where it is, so when you’re up to it you can get it, also Marlon wants to talk to you when you’re done.” She says and I nod a bit as she leaves the room Once she is gone, I look to AJ as he looked at me.

“You eat anything?” I asked him and he nods.

“Yea, the food was really good.” He says and I look to it and I eat some of it.

“Damn.” I say as the warm soup warmed me right up.

“See good.” He says and I chuckle a bit.

“Yea, haven’t had a good meal in weeks.” I admit as I eat some more.

“This place is fun; they have lots of cool things.” He says and I look to him.

“Goofball, you know we can’t overstay our welcome.” I tell him and he sighs and looks to the wall a bit.

“What if Marlon wants us to stay though?” He asked and I rubbed the back of my head and I looked to the bowl and I look back to AJ.

“We shouldn’t stay long we have to keep moving.” I tell him.

“Why do we keep moving anyway? We can never stay someplace nice.” He says and I look to him sadly.

“It…. It’s just not safe to stay in one area too long that’s all.” I say.

“You always say that though.” He complained and I sigh as I finish my soup and I look to him.

“Because it’s true, no place is safe anymore, we stay to long people find us, and most of the time those people want to hurt us.” I tell him.

“Like carver did to you?” He asked and I glare at the wall and I nod.

“He was a sick man…. But he was right about one thing, people rely to much on a kid to do anything… and look what happened to me.” I say and he looks down.

“I’d just like to stay somewhere longer than a few days you know.” He says and I look at him sadly.

“I know bud…. And one day we will, but right now we can’t do that, especially with these huge herds and bad people.” I tell him and he nods. I get up from the desk and I grab the bowl but AJ grabbed it from me as we walked out. I watched him as he ran up to some boy by a cauldron.

“Your boy is pretty active hu.” I hear and turn quickly and accidentally punch the person.

“HAHAH FUCKING LOUIS!” I hear and turn to see Violet and a few other kids laughing.

“Fuck I’m sorry I just, you just.” I say and he waves it off.

“You’re cool, my bad, seems like we know where your boy gets it from.” He says.

“He hit someone?” I asked.

“Yea, Marlon touched him from behind and your boy elbowed him in the gut.” He says.

“Touched him?” I asked a bit pissed.

“Oh god no not like that it was his shoulder.” The boy Louis says as he sees my face and I look at him.

“Good…. That’s uh… ok.” I say and I nod a bit as I look to see AJ go over to one kid that looked to be drawing.

“Uh, shit I uh, need my bag.” I say.

“Right, Marlon has it, I’ll take you to him.” Louis says as we head back inside.

“By the way, if you didn’t hear Violet yelling out my name, it’s Louis.” He says and I nod.

“Clementine.” I say.

“Oh, like the fruit?” He asked.

“Uh no, like me.” I say and he laughed a bit as we go up the stairs.

“Hey a little humor can do some good.” He says and I nod as we get to a door and Louis opens it as I walked in I saw Marlon looking over his desk a bit then looked up to see me.

“Oh hey, glad you’re up.” He says and I nod.

“I’ll leave you two be.” Louis says as he closed the door and I look back to Marlon.

“Um, Violet says my bag was up here?” I asked and he nods as he hands it to me.

“Don’t worry nothing is missing.” He says and I look through it and I find my hat.

“Shit didn’t know I wasn’t wearing it.” I say as I place it back on my head and I look to Marlon.

“Must be pretty important?” He asked and I nodded.

“You know if you want it cleaned up and patched up.” He tried to say and I shake my head.

“No I like it this way, thanks for the offer though.” I say and he nods.

“Uh, well I just wanted you to know, you and your boy could stay here for as long as you need to, just after a while you have to help out you know.” He says and I nod.

“Thanks for the offer, we might head out tomorrow if that’s fine.” I say and he nods.

“It would be great if you could stay longer, you know, give your boy a place to stay longer to rest up, I don’t think he’s had a good night sleep in a while.” Marlon says and I think a bit and I nod.

“Alright we can do that, just tell me what work needs to be done.” I say.

“Hard worker hu?” He asked and I nodded.

“Use to work a lot out there.” I say and he nods.

“Alright, well tomorrow you should come back here and we can talk about what you can do to help us, but for now you should go talk with the others, I have to check to see if our hunting party is back yet anyway.” He says as we leave the office and head to the courtyard. I look to see the other kids at the picnic tables talking and I stand there a bit awkward.

“Clem come join us.” Louis says and I walk over a bit and stand there.

“Have a seat, we wont bite.” Violet says and I have a seat right next to her and I look to the others.

“You sure about that?” I asked.

“Well, we ain’t Walkers so I’m sure.” She says.

“Fair, but I’ve bitten lots of people and I’m not a walker.” I say.

“Shit really why’d you bite them?” Louis asked and I shrugged.

“Don’t put your hand near my mouth and you’ll be fine.” I say.

“Dually noted.” Louis responds and I nod as he shuffles a deck of cards.

“Care to play a little game?” He asked and I look at the cards.

“Uh…. What are we playing?” I asked.

“War.” He says and I look at him.

“Hu, haven’t played that in a while… sure why not.” I say as he passed the cards around and I look at my deck.

“But in this game, we get to ask you questions if we get the high cards, but if you get a high card you can ask us a few questions, sound fair?” He asked and I nod.

“Sure, sounds pretty fair to me.” I say and he nods and we all flip our cards.

“Victory Violet.” I hear and see that Violet has the high card and I nod to her.

“Hmmm, ok how old are you?” she asked.

“Going to waste a question like that?” Louis asked and I look at him then to her.

“I’m uh… sixteen… just turned sixteen a… a few days ago.” I admit and she nods as we flip our cards again and I get the high card.

“Sweet.” I say and look to them.

“Uh, grossest thing you guys ate?” I asked.

“Horse eyeballs.” Violet says and I gag a bit.

“Fuck really?” I asked and she nods.

“Yea fucking gross.” She says.

“Cantaloupe for me.” Louis says and I look at him.

“I’d rather eat that then horse eyeballs.” I joke.

“I hate the stuff though… What about you?” He asked and I rubbed my neck as I shook my head.

“Uh, I’d rather not say.” I tell them.

“Come on can’t be that bad.” Louis pushed.

“Hey if she doesn’t want to say she doesn’t have to man.” Violet tells him and he shakes his head.

“Aww come on nothing she’s had could top your horse eyeballs.” He says and I look to them both.

“…. I didn’t know what it was till it was to late.” I say.

“You make it sound like you ate a person.” He says laughing and I look to them and he stops laughing as I give him a serious look.

“Shit fucking really?” Violet asked.

“Wasn’t like I enjoyed knowing I was eating one of my group members legs…. Back when all this started, we had been in this hellhole for three months and we were on the brink of starving to death, my old group and I… well these farmers came by and god…. We thought they were kind people, they let us on their farm, food for fuel for their generators you know, well come to find out during dinner time Lee comes running down and before he could stop us… Duck and I already took a bite of the meat…. Turns out it was one of our group members Marks legs…. Once they were found out they shaved us in a meat locker and I threw up a lot… shit I honestly thought that I was going to turn into a walker for that.” I explain to them.

“Holy fuck.” Louis says and I nod.

“Yea…. It uh…. That day was pretty scary to me.” I admitted and they nod as we flip our cards again.

“Alright.” Louis says and I look to him and he looked to me.

“Ever have a boyfriend?” He asked.

“Oh my god.” Violet says as she slammed her fist on the table.

“Come on it’s a pretty valid question, besides she has a boy.” He says and I laugh a bit.

“Uh re think the ages Louis.” I say and he looked to me.

“How old is he?” He asked and I look to him.

“Let’s just say if he was really mine, I would have been Eleven when I had him.” I tell him and he looked at me and turns red with embarrassment.

“Didn’t think that through.” He says and I nod.

“And no, didn’t have a boyfriend at all.” I tell him.

“Really now?” He asked.

“Nope, just causes a lot of trouble.” I say.

“The best kind, right?” He asked.

“Oh god no…. when there was the boy, Gabe he apparently had a crush on me but uh… it was really weird, cause he’d listen to me but not his uncle, and he tried to impress me with things I could do myself you know… not use to it and all…. Besides I need to take care of AJ.” I say as I look over to him and then back to Louis and Violet.

“Besides, romance is gross and dangerous.” I say.

“Dangerous how?” Violet asked.

“Hmm, seems like you guys are learning more about me than I am about you.” I say.

“Well Violet here was in a relationship.” Louis says.

“With you?” I asked and they laughed.

“No, Violet had a girlfriend.” He says and I look to her as she looked at the table and I looked away. She didn’t look like she wanted to talk about her relationship.

“What about you?” I asked Louis.

“Nope, I’m single.” He says and I nod.

“Good for you.” I say.

“But it does tend to get lonely.” He says and wiggles his eyebrow a bit and I shake my head.

“Uh not interested if that’s what you’re asking, like I said, relationships are dangerous.” I say.

“You never said how.” He says.

“Hmm, there was this guy and girl in my group, right as AJ was trying to uh…. Be born, Luke was supposed to keep watch for walkers…. Well him and this girl were uh…. Rolling around like teenagers and walkers got us in a tight spot…. my friend Sarah…. Ended up getting killed because of his lack of patrol…. and I couldn’t help her…. and she called for me and her dad before she died.” I say to them.

“Shit uh…. God I’m so sorry.” Violet says and I nod.

“Yea…. Well that’s why I’m not to fond of relationships…. Plus, if you don’t help someone’s significant other people get pissed off at you…. And it pisses me off more than anything when you get blamed for something you couldn’t control, especially if you’re a god damn little kid.” I say as I clench my fist in anger and then unclench it a bit.

“Shit, they’ll blame you and then try and use you as a bargaining chip for a bunch of fucking psychopaths.” I say as I remember Conrad.

“That happened to you?” Violet asked and I nod a bit.

“Yep…. I was thirteen years old too, the group they wanted to use me as a bargaining chip for…. They took AJ from me, they threw me out into the wilderness on my own as they ripped AJ out of my arms…. They said he was weak, they said he wasn’t going to live long, they wouldn’t give him even a tiny bit of medicine just to help him he was just a toddler, he…. He was just a baby and they were going to let him die, and it just….” I stopped talking and shook my head a bit as I remember David and his bullshit.

“They branded people, they branded me, that’s how you knew you were in, that’s how you got in, they fucking burnt my skin saying I was family and that’s how they fucking treat family? Fuck that, I’m fucking glad they’re dead too.” I say and look to them.

“Fucking hell, that’s a lot of anger.” Louis says.

“Oh no, I was beyond Angry, trust me I was on a war path, I’ve done a lot for that boy, I raised him on my own for a long time.” I tell them.

“Well you might not be his mom, but you sure act like it.” Violet says and I nod a bit.

“I promised his mom and dad I would protect their boy.” I say and they all nod and we flip the cards again and I look to see Louis had won again.

“Alright so…. What happened to your eye?” He asked and I look at him.

“Happened when I was eleven.” I say and I see Ruby look up as she looked to me and I look back to Louis and Violet.

“What uh…. Happened?” He asked.

“Hmm, there was this group in a Howes store, the leader was Carver and well…. He didn’t care how old you were he’d beat the hell out of you… anyway I stole a couple of radios so Luke could keep us posted on when we could escape, well before we could get one to him he got caught cause he tried to steal some food….. anyway, Carver caught on and found the one radio we were supposed to keep, and…. Before Kenny could grab the radio from me, I announced that I had it…. Walked up to Carver with the radio in hand and I placed it in his hand before he got to three…… once he said three…. I knew I was in trouble, next thing I know my face gets smashed in with a radio multiple times, Jane, Kenny, Sarita, and Nick tried to help but…. Carvers group pointed guns at them…. Only reason he stopped was because Bonnie said there was a breach in their wall or something…. I blacked out for a while.” I admitted and looked to them.

“When I woke up, Luke was talking about leaving me, but the others said that what he was saying was fucked up.”

“That is fucked up, he wanted to leave a kid with a group of people that just beat the living hell out of a kid.” Violet says.

“Yea… well doesn’t matter anyway, I was able to help them Injured and all that, had to turn on the PA system in Carvers office and Alvin…. AJ’s father saved me and I couldn’t save him…. I saved the others when I jumped on Carver and they grabbed his gun and stuff…. Kenny ended up shooting him in both his legs and I…. I was a monster.” I say.

“What did you do?” Louis asked.

“…. Bashed his fucking head in with a crowbar…. Until there was nothing but skull…. Kenny wanted to bash carvers head in but honestly…. I just…. I lost it; I really did…. But before he died, Carver was right by telling them that they look at me as if I was their leader…. and he wasn’t wrong.” I admit as I look at the cards and I hand Louis the deck back as Marlon came up to us.

“Hey Brody and them need help getting back, I can’t find Rosie anywhere.” Marlon says and I stand up.

“I’ll help.” I say and he nods.

“We have a hunting party out there, we just need to clear a path for them to come through and then get them back here, easier said than done though so stay alert.” He says and we all nod as we go out the gate and I close it on AJ as he tried to come out.

“I need you to stay here and be my eyes ok?” I asked and he nods.

“Alright, be careful.” He says and I nod as I grabbed my knife and we head out. I kill a few walkers and Louis even showed me the traps they had set up. It wasn’t long till we had killed the walkers and met up with the hunting party, as we started to head back Violet walked next to me and Louis ran up to us.

“I call that an A plus performance Clem good job.” He says and I nod.

“Violet you get a B Plus, you’ve done better.” He says and I roll my eyes.

“Don’t worry Violet, I think you deserve and A Plus.” I say and she smiles at me.

“I know.” She says and I smile.

“You’re both delusional.” Louis says.

“Am not.” I joke.

“Are too.” He says and I see some walkers. We separate and I killed a few and then look to see a walker sneaking up on one of the kids, so I hurry and stab it but it didn’t die, I struggled a bit but before I could kill it something rushed on by and grabbed the walker head, I look at the figure and saw it was a dog so I raise my knife up a bit just incase it decided to attack me. It walked up to me a bit licking the blood from its lips and I watch it carefully till I hear a whistle.

“Rosie there you are.” Marlon says as he comes up to her.

“You ok?” He asked.

“Had a really bad experience with a dog once.” I admit and he looked to me.

“Well Rosie here can help with that, she’s as cuddly as they come, when she isn’t mauling walkers.” He says and I nod as we walk back to the school with the others and AJ runs up to me and checks me.

“No bites?” He asked.

“Nope, no bites.” I tell him.

“You always ask each other that?” Violet asked.

“Yep, it’s our thing.” AJ tells her and I nod.

“Always have done this.” I say and she nods at this. It wasn’t long till dinner came around and AJ finished his food quick so I gave him mine since I was still full from the last bowl I ate.

“So, That’s Aasim, Tenn, Mitch, Willy, Omar, and Brody.” Marlon says as he introduced the others and I nod.

“I’m Clementine and this is AJ, or if you want call him shitbird.” I joke and AJ punches me and I chuckle a bit.

“I kid, I kid.” I say.

“You better.” He says and the others laugh at this. It wasn’t long till we all had decided to go to bed. AJ and I head to the room where I was in and he laid on the bed and I smiled seeing as I don’t have to try and convince him to lay in it instead of on the floor like the last place we were at. I laid in my bed and I looked to the bed above me, I closed my eyes just a bit as I finally drifted off to a good nights sleep, something I haven’t had in a long time.


	2. Dwindling Girl

(Clementine’s Pov)

I woke up to the feeling of my cheek being poked. I opened my one good eye to see AJ looking at me and smiling as I sit up and smile at him a bit.

“Hey what’s up?” I asked.

“Nothing, you just slept in later and I was making sure you were ok.” He says and I look at him.

“Shit really?” I asked and he nods as I get up from the bed and I look around the room a bit. I went and grabbed my bag and grabbed AJ’s gun and he looked to me as I handed it to him and he nods as he placed it in his back pocket. I get up and I stretch a bit as I look to him as he heads to the door.

“Fuck.” I mumbled as I got up and we headed outside.

“Afternoon sleeping beauty.” I hear and look to see Violet as she came up to us.

“Sorry I just.”

“Nah you’re good, we expected you to sleep in.” She says and I nod a bit.

“But you’re in luck, Brody and I were just about to go fishing, and AJ wanted to come with…. So if you want.” She offered and I nod at this.

“Sure that would be great actually.” I say as she nods and heads to the gate and I watch AJ run up to her as I walked with him.

“What is a fish?” He asked and she looked at me.

“Well it’s an animal that can live in the water…. I didn’t do so well in biology.” Violet says as we walked out the gates and headed more into the woods.

“What class did you do well in Vi?” Brody asked.

“History, mostly in the major wars and discrimination eras which is all of them.” She says.

“You know Clementine’s friend Lee use to be a teacher.” AJ says and I look at him and then to them as I nod.

“Yea he was a college professor.” I say as we walk more.

“You know I always thought that I’d want to go to college, be the first in my family with a college education, show I was better than them…. But they’d still be better than me.” Violet says and I look at her.

“Why is that?” AJ asked and she looked to him.

“My family mostly worked their whole lives, heck my grandfather was helping his dad build broken cars for a living, and he was just about your age too.” She says to him.

“Really?” AJ asked and she nods as we walk.

“I wanted to be a history teacher.” She says.

“What did you want to be Clementine?” Brody asked and I chuckled.

“It’s stupid.” I reply.

“Come on tell.” Violet says.

“Hmmm, well I wanted to uh…. I wanted to be a… princess.” I say and Violet chuckles a bit.

“Frilly dress and tiara?” She asked and I nodded.

“But also a Sword, A warrior princess.” I say and she nods.

“Well, you’re half way there.” She says and I nod at this.

“Well I was eight when this happened, now that I really think about it, I would like to be a doctor… just like my mom.” I say.

“So how did your parents uh… die? I mean if they are.” Brody asked.

“They were on a trip in Savanna…. They never came home.” I tell her.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She says.

“Nah it’s fine, I was never supposed to find them but when I did….. it wasn’t the best case.” I say.

“How?” Violet tried to ask but stopped and I look at her.

“It’s fine to ask, I haven’t talked about it for years.” I say and she nods as I think about that day.

“I was nine years old, I was begging Lee for us to go find my parents, I wanted to see them alive and…. I was stupid, I use to have a walkie talkie but I lied saying it was broken, and this man radioed me looking for people, and I talked to him, told him all the things that have happened, I trusted this man because he said he was with my parents, saying they were ok and alive you know…. And then we get to Savanna, Lee had taken my radio and it goes off, I was a bit freaked cause he would know, I did something bad…. Anyway I ran away with the man and he lied about my parents he… lied saying he was with them…. Well Lee came and saved me, I… I shot the man because he was going to shoot Lee, well when it was over lee opened the door and a Walker was right there just standing and staring at him then it sees me and tries to get me, he shot it and I mentioned he was covered in gross stuff, turned out it was walker blood and guts and bleh.” I say and Violet looks at me.

“Anyway Lee covered me in the walkers sent and we walked out the Marsh House into this huge and I mean fucking huge heard of walkers…. We were getting close to the docks and I turn my head a bit at two walkers that looked so familiar… I stopped and I…. I found my parents…. Walkers as they looked back at me.” I explain as we get to a truck.

“Holy fucking Shit…. I’m so sorry Clementine.” Brody says and I nod.

“Yea…. Anyway that was the same day I had to shoot Lee, he was bitten and he still came to save me, imagine that… I was a brat to him because I was selfish I was still living in a fantasy world thinking my parents were alive I never stopped to think they could be dead, I wanted to go home with them but well, shit happens.” I say.

“I don’t know what I would have done.” Violet says.

“I know people that let their family turn and kept them like that, the stranger had his wife’s head in a bowling bag and he talked to it.” I say remembering that moment.

“Sick.” Brody says and we finally get to the shack.

“I know a guy that said if he got bit, then he wanted to be a Walker, just so he could turn others.” AJ says and they look at him and I nod.

“Yea… lets just say he uh, didn’t get the option to do that.” I say as Brody goes into the shack and I look at Violet.

“We had a kid that got bitten and well… he was really young, like…. Seven I think, anyway he got bit by this strange guy that came at us when we were going to head on a field trip and we honestly thought he had rabies…. Well he turned and bit another boy and we were all freaking out when the owner of the school shot them both, the teachers all left except for Mrs. Martin our nurse, and the radio was saying something about the dead coming back, then the radio station went out and that was that.” Violet explained and I think a bit.

“So uh…. You were in a relationship?” I asked and she nods as Brody comes out the shack and hands us some spears, Brody goes and checks the traps as Violet and I look down the stream to catch anything, AJ went a bit more down and I kept my watch on him.

“Yea… I was.” I hear Violet and I look at her.

“What uh…. Happened? If you want to talk about it.” I say and she looked to the waters and stabbed a fish as she put it in the bucket.

“I uh… Her name was Minnie… well Minerva but I called her Minnie…. But fuck she was pretty tall…. Uh…. Anyway I wanted to work in the greenhouse we have and I had an argument with Marlon so Minnie and her twin sister Sophie went with him and Brody instead, and uh…. When they came back…. Marlon told us that the twins had died… Walkers got them…. Brody didn’t talk to me for weeks, I think she thought I blamed her for what happened.” She says as she looked to Brody.

“I never did blame her though, I never blamed anyone but the Walkers for what happened, but I kept my distance from her because she was scared of me, and would have panic attacks till I asked Ruby to tell her I wasn’t mad…. I just…. I just wish I was there when Minnie was… dying because I… I don’t know…. I wanted to have a chance to say goodbye.” She says quietly and AJ comes running up to us with a fish and Violet praises him as he goes back to fishing.

“I know that feeling….. it’s hard for people to lose loved ones in this world…. I thought AJ had been dead for a while when I was part of this group, the New Frontire…. They took him from me when he was sick and I just…. lost it you know, he was all I had left in this world and I thought the worse before I thought the good because I learned that no one in this world gives a crap if you’re a kid…. Stupid fucking survival of the fittest, well look at us now I lived longer than those assholes and I’m just a kid.” I say or well ranted as I got a fish and placed it in the bucket.

“People took him?” She asked and I nodded.

“That’s why AJ and I don’t like it when people come behind us, before I met you guys we ran into a group of bandits and… they were fucking monsters, literal monsters they had kids that they….. let’s just say those people are gone now, so…. So no need to worry about them at least.” I tell her as I looked to her and she nods understanding.

“Did they…. If you don’t want to talk about it it’s fine you know.” She says and I nod and smirk.

“They never got the chance, when one guy tried I bit the fuckers finger right off.” I tell her and she stops fishing and I shake my head a bit.

“I know how to handle situations like that, never get trapped, don’t trust adults, hell I don’t mean to be rude and all but I still don’t trust your group… after two people in my group fought it got me thinking a lot…. Like everyday I kept thinking, am I next? Would this person I considered a friend do the same to me? Would he hurt AJ? I know he loved us but…. After all this… I don’t know anymore.” I tell her honestly.

“Nah it’s not rude to say that at all, shit I’m still keeping my eye on you.” She says and I smirk at this.

“That’s smart, but don’t just keep your eye on me, keep one on AJ too, the moment he says something doesn’t feel right or something happens to him, he can handle himself but I would do anything to keep him safe.” I admit as I catch one more fish before Brody comes over to us.

“Fishing traps ain’t got nothing in them.” She says and I nod.

“Sometimes you got to leave some type of food in there for them to go inside, AJ’s parents old group would catch fish a lot and well Pete taught me a few things before he died, sadly we don’t have fishing poles or you know, time.” I explained as I handed the spear back as Violet got the bucket when AJ put the last fish in it.

“Well we use to do that but still we didn’t get a lot, and Marlon said it was a waste.” Brody says as we walk.

“Not if it’s the stuff you can’t eat, use those parts, unless you want to get sick.” I say.

“We know, but Marlon won’t let us.” Violet says.

“That’s dumb, what you guys feed the walkers the bad parts?” I joked and they shook their heads no.

“That would be stupid, it’s like feeding a stray they’d come back.” Brody says.

“Well yea.” I say.

“Hey this is dumb to ask but, but where would you go if you didn’t have to worry about the dead?” Brody asked as we got to the truck.

“Hmmm, Mexico.” I admit.

“Heheh want a Taco or something?” Violet asked and I looked at her then to the truck and I shake my head as I remembered Kenny asking me the same thing, telling me how he went there before he met Katjaa. I sigh a bit at the memory and look to AJ then back to Violet.

“No just better than freezing to death, I’ve stayed up north way to long with all these wars, communities against each other killing innocent people, kids…. It would just be better.” I say.

“What about you AJ?” Violet asked.

“I’d go with Clementine.” He says and I laugh as I rubbed his head.

“Well duh, what was he going to say Violet?” Brody asked her.

“Shit I don’t know; he probably would have said Candy land.” Violet says as she looked to Brody.

“And what Tell him it ain’t real?” she says a bit mad.

“Well I mean I think the kid could handle it not being real I mean look around you.” Violet admits.

“You can’t crush a kids dream though.” Brody says.

“He doesn’t know a lot of kid things, well other than Disco Broccoli.” I tell them.

“He’s a cool dude.” AJ says and I nod.

“I…. I didn’t mean.” Brody says.

“It’s fine, I haven’t told him a lot of kid things because well… I can’t, heck I was eight when this started, I can’t remember a lot about the world before the dead were walking.” I tell her as we walk more.

“Well what do you remember?” Brody asked.

“Oh god lets see…. I was in the first grade, I played soccer but I didn’t like it, I used to love playing in my treehouse a lot.” I say as I remember having to hide from walkers and robbers when all this started, thinking about how I almost ran out of food. How Lee called for me while I was up there hiding from him as I held a hammer thinking about dropping it on his head. I remember watching and even helping my dad build it in the summer time too.

“Tree house hu?” Brody asked and I nodded.

“I hate it now.” I say as we walk.

“Why would you hate that? Lord knows I wish I had one.” Violet says and I nod as I look to her then to the woods.

“When my babysitter got bit by a Walker, I hid in there for days, barely any food, almost died in it…. Then Lee came and… I thought about dropping a hammer on his head.” I chuckled a bit as I remember telling him I was thinking about it.

“Robbers came into my yard too, tried to get into the house to steal my parent’s TV…. They were so god damn stupid; I mean the door was open, but before they could break a window Walkers came by and scared the hell out of them.” I explained as we get to another section of the woods and I see a walker dangling in the trap dead and I look at it.

“Shit did louis and Aasim do this?” Brody asked and I look to them.

“This is common with you guys?” I asked thinking if I should be worried.

“No, not at all, we don’t leave walkers in traps.” Violet says as she goes up and unties it and I look around the area and see some boot imprints and a cigarette as I pick it up.

“Any of you guys smoke?” I asked.

“No, nothing to smoke.” Violet tells me as she moves the walker away from the trap and Brody resets the trap.

“You know if any people have been around here or live near here?” I asked.

“No, we’ve seen a few people pass by but we don’t talk to them.” Brody tells and AJ looked around a bit and I look around a bit. Then there was a gun shot and I take cover with AJ and I see the others do the same. AJ pulled his gun out and he handed it to me and I hand him my knife as I look around.

“SHOW YOURSELVES I KNOW THERE’S FOUR OF YOU!” I hear someone yell and I look in the revolver to see two bullets and I move to the side a bit only to get shot at as I moved back into hiding.

“LOWER THE DAMN WEAPON!” I yelled out the shooter.

“Oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you, I said get the fuck out.” The man says and I look to Brody and Violet as I motion for them to stay down and I keep the gun to my side as I slowly stand up and move a bit so the shooter could see at least half of me.

“DON’T SHOOT OK!” I yelled to them.

“SHUT THE HELL UP YOU DON’T MAKE DEMANDS!” The man yells and I see them come out and it was this hillbilly looking guy.

“Now lower your fucking gun and tell your friends to come out.” The man says and I glared at him.

“No, how do I know you don’t got any more people with you?” I asked and he laughed.

“Shit you’re a fucking kid the fuck do you know.” He laughed and I glared at him as he pointed his shotgun at me and I point my revolver at him.

“AH, I wouldn’t do that if I were you girly.” He says.

“Back off and I wont.” I say.

“Like I said, you don’t make the demands you little shit.” He says as he gets closer. I make quick as I shoot at the man in the gut.

“RUN!” I say and they all start to run back to the school as I go to the man quickly to pistol whip him to knock him out but before I could he pointed his gun to them and I get in front of him quickly as he fired the gun hitting me instead, though the adrenalin was running I hit him knocking him out and I make a run for it. I have no clue how long it took me to get to the school but I did and Ruby hurries to me.

“Fucking hell what happened?” She asked.

“There was a guy he, fuck.” I say as I hold my wound.

“Jesus, you get hurt a lot.” She says as we head to the picnic table.

“Fuck it got you on the side but shit there’s shrapnel.” She says and I nod.

“CLEM!” I hear AJ yell as he comes up to me along with Brody and Violet.

“Shit, fuck are you ok?” Brody asked panicked and Violet just looked scared and I nod.

“Yea, just a nick on the side, Ruby’s got me…. Fuck it burns like hell though.” I say.

“I’ll get some Peroxide.” Violet says as she runs and Brody follows her.

“AND TWEEZERS!” Ruby yelled to her and I sigh.

“Fucking hell, What the hell happened out there?” Marlon asked as he came over to us.

“There was a man, he shot at us and we hid, I got in the way…. He’s knocked out in the middle of the woods but for fuck sake I need to know, do you know if anyone is living around here? Cause if you do I need to know now because I’m not going to stay here or let AJ stay here if you’re going to lie to me.” I tell him.

“No, we didn’t know of anyone living around here.” He says a bit panicked and I glare at him a bit.

“Just hold still.” Ruby says as Violet and Brody come back and Ruby works on me a bit.

“Fuck….I Fuck.” Brody says panicked and I look at her.

“You ok?” I asked and she shakes her head no.

“Jesus, I mean… he fucking shot you, the man… what the fuck.” Brody says as she backs away and Marlon goes over to her.

“Fuck.” I mumble as ruby takes a piece of shrapnel out and she looked to me.

“You are one tough kid you know that.” She says and I nod.

“God if you could see all the scars I have.” I say.

“Yea I saw the huge one on your arm, and that burn mark.” She says and I nod as she takes another piece out and I grumble a bit.

“Shit got one more piece but it’s in there pretty good, it’s going to hurt like hell.” She says and I nod as I gripped the seat as she worked on it.

“FUCK!” I yell and she stops and I hold my side.

“I didn’t get it, shit.” She says and I nod a bit.

“Give me a bit… Please.” I asked and she nods as I take a few breaths and I moved my hand away as she tried again. It took a while but she got the piece out and it was pretty big compared to the others and she cleans the wounds.

“Fucking hell, you’d think I’d be use to this type of stuff.” I mumbled.

“Honestly, I don’t think a grown adult would be able to handle it well like you did, shit, you been shot, you’ve got a huge scar on your arm from god knows what, you’ve got a busted eye too and you were a child when that happened… give yourself some form of credit you know.” Ruby says as she stands up after patching me up and I sigh as I nod.

“Yea…. Thanks again.” I say and she nods.

“If it starts to hurt or anything just holler.” She tells me and I nod as I hold my side more.

“You are one tough girl I have to admit that.” I hear and look up to see Marlon.

“Yea well it comes with years of experience.”

“I can tell…. Anyway I’m sorry that you got hurt out there, we have no clue if people wonder in these woods anymore, we took down the signs for the school when all of this was new to us.” He says and I nod as I get up a bit.

“Hey stay seated you might pull your stitches.” I hear.

“Nah I’m good.” I say as I stand.

“You can rest you know. You’re not out in the woods anymore.” He tells me.

“If I start to relax now I’ll get use to it, and that’s bad.” I say.

“Who told you that? It’s stupid if you ask me.” He says.

“My friend Omid told me that, before he died….. you can’t be to relaxed in a new place, it’s fine for you guys and all but I can’t do it, people take advantage of that and then they use it against you.” I say as I walk over to AJ who was currently talking to Violet.

“You’re ok.” He says and I nod as he hugs me a bit.

“Hmm easy bud.” I tell him and he nods as he moves away and I check him.

“He didn’t get bit if that’s what you’re looking for, Brody and I made sure of that.” Violet says as I look up at her.

“Thanks I just.” I stop as I look to him.

“We always do this, it’s our thing.” He says to her and she nods.

“Not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s better to double check for these things.” She says and I nod a bit as I watch AJ sit at the table with Tenn as he draws and I smile.

“Tenn is an artist.” AJ says as he points to Tenns paper and I nod a bit.

“Shit, I still have the drawing you made when you were a toddler.” I say.

“Seriously?” Violet asked and I nod.

“It…. It was all I had left of him when he got taken.” I say as I take a seat next to him.

“Clementine can draw too, she’s really good.” AJ says and I shake my head at this.

“Really? Can we see?” Tenn asked and they both looked at me with puppy eyes and I rubbed my neck a bit as I nod a little.

“Sure…. Uh what do you want me to Draw?” I asked as he handed me a paper and pencil.

“How about Violet?” Tenn asked and I looked at him.

“A flower?” I asked.

“No.” he says and points to Violet who was turning a bit red at the suggestion and I nod.

“Don’t complain if I mess up on the eyes, I can’t always get them right.” I admit and she nods as I look at her and I start to make a sketch.

“So you drew a lot hu?” Violet asked and I nod.

“When I was little, with Lee he’d always find some papers for me to draw on so I wouldn’t get bored or try to get involved with grown up talk as he called it…. Had some chalk once too, my pink one went missing though.” I say as I remembered it.

“Is pink your favorite color?” She asked and I shook my head as I worked more.

“No… well not really, I love the color purple, it was my dad’s favorite color and I loved my dad a lot.” I say as I look back up to her and I erased some marks and worked again.

“It’s good that you remember him you know.” She says and I nod.

“Yea….. I try to remember what my parents looked like before but it’s hard to remember…. You know what I mean?” I asked and she nods.

“Yea I do, it sucks when you can’t remember what they looked like or their Voice. Some people think you do it intentionally but it’s hard.” She says and I nod as I sketch some more and erase some marks here and there.

“So how long does it take to draw people?” She asked and I look at her.

“Depends, might take a few hours or days, depends on how detailed I want to be.” I answer as I work some more.

“Sophie was the artist here in our school.” She tells me and I look at her.

“Minnie was the musical talent, all bluesy.” She says as I watch her.

“They uh… they honestly didn’t like killing walkers.” She admits and I watch her some more.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“They still thought they were people, just sick and needed help, even after they saw the walkers kill our own, they still thought that way, and shit…. I tried to make sure they didn’t have to kill walkers, told them they didn’t have to and that I would…. We all agreed on that…. Now that I say this, I guess it was my fault they died, I should have pushed them to kill walkers, if I did they’d probably still be here with us.” She explained and I look at her.

“I knew a guy that didn’t want his daughter to know anything about this world, two years in and she still didn’t understand the Walkers and how bad they really were, he sheltered her, didn’t even teach her how to hold or shoot a gun…. I was eleven-year-old girl and I had to teach this fifteen-year-old how to hold a gun properly and to properly shoot, he didn’t explain shit to me about his daughter other than she would cease to function, didn’t tell me she had panic attacks, didn’t explain that she was…. WAY more different that I was, you know… special.” I say and Violet looked to me and nodded.

“He then tells me to stay the hell away from his daughter just cause I asked her to get me something for my arm, after he couldn’t tell the difference between a walker bite and a dog bite.” I say as I shake my head.

“I mean… how bad was it?” She asked and I looked from the paper to her.

“You could tell the difference between a dog bite and a walker bite, Walkers leave their teeth indented on your skin, dog bites are more jagged and deeper when they tear the skin because their teeth are so much different than ours, Doesn’t matter anymore, I proved I wasn’t bitten, I made my point after they come in when a walker attacked me and I…. killed the damn thing.” I say getting a bit pissed off and I calm down a bit.

“It’s stupid you know, people claim they’re a doctor but don’t know shit, it pisses me off to no end…. Because of them people die…. Shit the doctor that said AJ would never make it, he was a fucking junkie, wasting medicine to get high but says a baby having medicine was a waste for someone else’s life… but look at him now, he’s five and still alive and I know I made the right call.” I say as I look to AJ and I patted his head which still had Kenny’s hat.

“He had to at least know the basics, right?” She asked.

“Shit if I know, Carver trusted him with his people but what he did to me was a huge mistake, one that could have caused me to die because they didn’t clean my arm and locked me in a filthy shed to die, reguardless, I took care of myself.” I say as I show her my arm.

“Ever seen an eleven-year-old stich themselves up?” I asked and she shook her head no and I chuckled as I went back to drawing.

“Sucks a lot I’ll tell you that much.”

“I bet…. Wait, you got bit by a dog?” She asked and I nod.

“Yea… I don’t like being around dogs.” I tell her.

“Well… I know it’s wrong for me to say this but Rosie is a good dog… If you uh… want to try and be near her I could help if you want that is, I wont force you.” She says and I look at her.

“I’ll think about that.” I tell her and she nods and I work on the sketch more and sigh as I make a mistake and erase some parts.

“I use to love animals.” She says and I smile.

“I want to say you look like a cat person.” I say and she laughed and I look at her.

“Well, I’m not…. I wanted a Chinchilla.” She says.

“What is that?” AJ asked and I look to him and then to her.

“It’s…. it’s hard to explain, it’s like a rabbit, but WAY fluffier, and you can’t give them baths with water because of how fluffy they are so they take sand baths, they’re really cute and they bark too, not like a dog but um… I’m ranting.” She says.

“Nah it’s good, you seem to be well versed on it.” I say and she nods.

“I wanted one so badly but… we couldn’t afford it, and well, they’re hard o take care off if you don’t know a lot about them, and they love attention.” She explained to him. She talked with AJ more about animals and I smiled as I saw her smile as well.

“Clementine saw a cow once.” AJ says and I nod.

“Yea, Mable was her name I think… or Marble I can’t remember.” I say as I finished one section of Violet and showed her.

“Holy Shit.” She says and I chuckle.

“Woah, that’s amazing Clementine.” Tenn says and I nod.

“Thanks Tenn.” I say.

“Shit, looks like a picture.” Violet says and I nod as I get back to work on it.

“Hey you guys, We need to go talk with Marlon.” I hear and looked to Louis.

“You too Clem, he thinks you should be involved after well.” He says and I nod as I set the drawing down and I tell AJ to stay with Tenn as Violet, Louis and I went to Marlon as he talked to the others.

“Hey you guys.” He says and I nod as I stand and listen.

“Well we need to find more food.” He says.

“Then extend the Safe Zone.” Aasim tells him.

“Safe Zone?” I asked and he looked to me.

“Shit right I didn’t explain that.” Marlon says as he pulls out a map that they made themselves and I look at it.

“This red section is the safe zone, we don’t go out this area, clearly why it’s named that, and I can’t extend it Aasim.” Marlon says.

“You say we need more food but no animals come close to the school, we have to do something.” Aasim argues back at him and I look at the map and see the train station labled and I point to it.

“There, AJ and I we went inside there, found a trap door and there was a lot a food, we could go there.” I explained.

“That’s outside the safe zone.” Marlon tells me.

“Look I understand completely why you made this safe zone and all but if you can’t extend it, and you can’t get any food from it, this is going to be your best shot, that stuff is just sitting there for the taking, the original owners are dead.” I say.

“How would you know?’ Mitch asked a bit pissed and I look at him.

“They were walkers, I had to kill them to get the key to the security door, trust me when I say this there is plenty of food there…. And there should still be if they grenade didn’t destroy all of it.” I mumbled the last part.

“Grenade?” Ruby asked.

“It was rigged I didn’t know, that’s what caused a lot of the walkers to come out and how I ended up crashing the car.” I say.

“Shit, then the place is infested, there is no way we’re going there now.” Marlon says and I think.

“I can go, I’m not part of the group technically and if I die you didn’t lose something important at least.” I say.

“Shit you must be suicidal or something.” Violet says.

“Not really, but if I can help I can, I learned one good thing in this world.” I say to all of them.

“The answer is No Clementine, lets be honest here, we haven’t had problems till you showed up, how do we know you weren’t working with that one guy you all saw in the woods.” Marlon says and I look at him.

“The fuck? I’m not, I got fucking shot by him, I have no clue about this area, it’s new to AJ and I.” I tell him.

“Well how do we know that?” He says.

“Shit man there’s no easy way to prove anything, what you think I carry a camera with me? I can tell you all the people I have met are dead, all of them, AJ and I have been on our own for years, I’ve been on my own for years.” I tell him.

“Well how can we trust that you won’t go talking to that man hu?’ He says and I glare at him and I shake my head.

“You think I want to go find him and have a fucking Tea party with him? Sorry but he more than likely got eaten by walkers when I knocked him out, Look I’m offering to go and get you guys food, at least to help you like you helped me, I don’t give two shits if you want me to stay here long or not, but I at least want to pay back for all the help I’ve gotten, seems fair.” I say.

“I can go with her to make sure she doesn’t talk to the guy if he’s still alive.” Violet offered.

“You want to make things difficult don’t you Violet.” He says to her.

“Hey, I’m not trying to make anything difficult, I just want Tenn and Willy to not starve, and Clem has to look out for AJ, do you want kids to starve Marlon? Look I’ll make sure to watch her carefully, if something goes wrong, I’ll just head back here.” She explained.

“What does, ‘Safe Zone’ mean to you? Shit you ran out there with Louis to help them.” He says and I look at them.

“I just…. Marlon if we can’t find food now then what? We don’t have a working greenhouse anymore because of this stupid Safe Zone, look around nothing is safe, we all understand you want to keep us safe and we appreciate it, but if there’s food and Clem knows where it’s at, it’s best we try then not.” She explained to him calmly and he sighed.

“Fine fuck it, you Louis and Clementine will go look for that train station, and Clementine, if anything happens to any of them, you and your boy will be gone, I don’t care.” He says and I nod.

“Loud and Clear.” I say and he nods and we all go our separate ways and I sigh.

“Is he always like this?” I asked Louis as he walked next to me.

“He’s just looking out for us.” He says.

“I know, I know…. Is he the only one in charge? He seems stressed.” I asked.

“I…. Yea he is.” Louis says.

“You know, that much stress can cause harm to him.” I admit.

“And you would know?” He asked and I nod.

“Carver, he was taking care of a group of so many people that could turn their backs on him you know, got to make a lot of people happy, Lilly too, when she took over my first group it caused stress, especially when we were all going to starve, we didn’t have much rations for ten people, so she made Lee do it, it was hard on him, he fed the kids first though.” I say as we both got our supplies and I see him carrying a chair.

“Never did introduce you to Chairles.” He says and I look at him as he laughed at his own joke.

“Uh hi?” I asked and he smiles a bit as he walks to the gate and I follow him. We stand there a bit as we wait for Violet and AJ came over.

“Hey bud, you want to sit this one out? Just for today?” I asked and he looked to me.

“Who will protect you?” He asked.

“Don’t worry little dude, Louis and I can watch her, don’t worry.” Violet tells him and I nod and he looked to me and I watch him.

“Please Just relax, you need it after today.” I tell him.

“Well you need to relax too.” He tells me and I sigh a bit.

“You’re not going to stay put are you?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Jesus, please just this once AJ? You can watch over these guys, maybe interrogate them a bit?” I asked and he looked to them and then back to me and nods.

“Fine, but if Clem gets hurt, you have to take care of her.” He tells the two teens and they nod.

“Can do Dude.” Louis says and he nods as he runs over to Tenn as Louis, Violet and I head out the gates and I look at the map.

“Interrogation hu?” Violet asked and I nod.

“I just want him to relax, trust me he’s just going to ask dumb things…. Or maybe not.” I say as I think about it.

“Don’t worry, He’ll be safe with the others, nothing to worry about.” Louis tells me and I sigh.

“Haven’t traveled with New people in a while, it’s just all so new to me, being alone or with AJ.” I admit as we walk more.

“Well you’re with us now.” Violet tells me and I nod.

“You know AJ would always ask me if we would find a place to call home…. You know how hard it is to lie to him?” I ask.

“I bet it’s hard, he is a tot, you can’t really lie to them about these things.” Louis answers and I nod.

“God his face would fall when I’d tell him no… ‘No, we can’t stay here AJ it’s not safe’ or ‘No AJ there are monsters here we have to go.’ It gets old so I had to start telling him that we’ll see about this place.” I tell them both as I look at the map again.

“I wouldn’t be able to lie to Tenn about these things, but he’s older so he’d understand more.” Violet says.

“AJ understands sometimes, but sometimes he pushes some buttons and I get mad at him…. It’s not that I want to it just happens, then he wont talk to me for a day or two and I would feel really bad.” I look up from the map once we get close to the train station and I take a look around a bit as I see walkers around the area and I sigh.

“Lot of DeadHeads here.” Louis says and I nod.

“I’ll take blame for this.” I say as I get a good look and I see the bell and think as I look to them.

“Alright, someone has to ring the bell and then when the Walkers are distracted two of us can start heading to the station, I can give a signal and then one of you can move to the next cart and ring the bell there and we can get in then get out.” I explained.

“Sounds like a plan.” Violet says.

“I’ll ring the bell for you guys and then you two head in.” Louis volunteered and I nod as he goes and grabs the bell and makes his way to the first cart. I wait until he made some sounds and I go ahead and see a few Walkers that I took out. When that was done I headed to the barrels and I see Violet kill a Walker as she runs up to my side and I nod as I stand up a bit and wave to louis as he nods and heads to the next cart. I take cover again and we wait a bit.

“Shit, Louis come on.” Violet mumbled.

“Give him some time.” I say and then we hear the bell sound again and I get up and we run into the station. I make sure the door is closed and I sigh as I look to the walker couple.

“Shit.” Violet says and I sigh as I head to the booth and I open the door a bit.

“It’s fine they’re dead trust me.” I tell her.

“It… it’s not that just… did they do that to themselves?” She asked and I nodded.

“Yea they left a note saying they wanted this, they drank a lot of Poison.” I tell her as I opened the hatch and I nod and looked to see a few duffle bags and I grab them.

“Alright I’ll go in grab whatever and hand them to you.” I tell her and I go down the hatch and grabbed some jars and set them on the ledge for her to grab, it took a bit due to me having to crouch a lot but we got a lot of food. I come up one last time to see Violet looking at the door a bit and I turned to see a man looking at us.

“Well, Shit it’s my lucky day.” The man says and I glare at him as he pointed his gun on me and I saw he was missing an arm and I glare at him.

“Guess I can beat the hell out of you after what you’ve done to me.” He says and I just keep glaring as he went and grabbed another bag and went to our full one.

“Now, I’m going to take some food, seems like you owe me that much since you made me lose an arm, you bitch.” He says.

“You fucking deserved it.” I tell him and he laughed a bit at that.

“You’re going to keep your mouth shut, or your girlfriend here is going to end up with a bullet in her head.” He says and I keep quiet. I see Violet about to move near him but I shake my head no as he set his gun down close to him and he filled up his bag a bit.

“Good, now I’d best be going.” He says as he lugs the bag like a backpack and he grabbed the gun and left and I shake my head.

“Fuck.” I mumbled.

“I could have gotten him.” Violet says and I shake my head.

“Just drop it ok, I didn’t want either of us to get shot.” I say as I go back to getting more food. It wasn’t long till we had to hurry out the train station, we had to kill a few walkers on the way out and I look around more as we head back to the school.

“I saw a guy leaving the train station, what happened?” Louis asked.

“Shit I don’t know anymore; he was the same guy that shot Clementine.” Violet tells him.

“And you let him get away?” Louis asked.

“Look he had a gun doesn’t matter if he had one arm or not, I just didn’t want anyone getting hurt.” I say as we walked more.

“But you could have taken him.”

“Oh, right let me just become the flash and quickly hop out the trap door before he could grab his gun and shoot me, smart move there.” I mumbled as we walked more.

“Clem, we didn’t mean.” Violet tried to say.

“It’s fine, it was a mistake…. Should have shoved him in the pack of walkers.” I say as we get to the gates. Willy opened the gate as we walked in and set the food on the picnic table and I head over to AJ.

“What’s wrong with her?” I hear Mitch ask.

“Nothing, we saw that guy again, he took some of the food.” Violet explains.

“And you let him?” Mitch asked.

“Not like we had a choice; he had a damn gun pointed at us.” She tells him.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean that.” He says and I look to AJ.

“Wait you saw the guy again?” Brody asked and I looked to her a bit as I left AJ with Tenn and I walked over to the older kids.

“Yea, he had one arm this time, seems he got bitten when we saw him last.” I tell her.

“Shit, he’s got to have a group than, god this is so fucked.” She says.

“It’s fine we can deal with it.” I tell her.

“Deal with it? Are you kidding me, he saw you and you let him go, what if he brings more people, what if he followed you?” She says pissed.

“You have no idea what people are like out there.” She says and I glare at her.

“No idea? Hello, I got my eye taken out when I was eleven god damn years old, I’ve dealt with a bunch of fucked up people, ranging from cannibals to child rapists for fuck sake, I defiantly know what people are like out there, because unlike you and everyone else here I had to grow the hell up in that type of environment, and it fucking sucks a lot, so don’t fucking test me.” I tell her and they all look at me.

“Woah Clem.” Louis says.

“She didn’t mean.” Violet tells me and I glare at them then AJ comes up and speaks.

“Clementine Breath.” I glare at him for a bit and I breath a bit.

“Clem, remember what we do when we’re mad?” He asked and I grip my hand into a fist as I look at them.

“Sorry just… sorry.” I mumbled.

“Good, now breath.” AJ says and I look to him.

“What are you my mom?” I joked and he laughed just a bit and I take a few breaths.

“Look, I know what people are like out there, it’s a god-awful thing to experience, so just…. don’t tell me I don’t know cause I do…. And I’m sorry for getting agro about it.” I tell Brody.

“It’s fine I shouldn’t have said that, I forgot.” She says and I nod a bit as I hold my hand out to her and she shakes it and I let go.

“Jesus, I thought there was going to be a fight or something.” Marlon says as he comes up to us.

“AJ was able to stop it.” Louis says and I shake my head a bit.

“I’m going to head to bed early.” I tell them as I walk away.

“What about dinner?” Louis asked.

“Give it to AJ.” I say as I go into the dorms and head to bed for some sleep.


	3. The Plan

(Clementine’s Pov)

_“Hey there sweet-pea.” I hear and turn to look at Lee as he smiled to me. I walk up to him and I give him the biggest hug I could get as we both sat down in the RV seat._

_“So, what’s on your mind, you usually don’t dream of me unless something is wrong.” He asked and I look at him._

_“I got mad again.” I admit._

_“It’s ok to be mad sweet-pea, what did you get mad about?” He asked as I leaned my head on his shoulder. I felt comfortable by doing this._

_“This girl Brody wanted to say I have no idea what it’s like out there, beyond the walls, I just got mad I wanted to punch her.”_

_“But did you?”_

_“No… AJ stopped me, and I couldn’t.” I tell him as I look up to see him smile as he placed his hand around my shoulder and I sigh a bit._

_“You just got to remember they don’t know what you’ve been through, not all of it, I know you’ve been telling them things about yourself but it’s good to keep some things a secret unless you really need to talk about it.” He explained and I sigh as I look over to Kenny and the others._

_“I… they can’t just act like they know everything.” I mumbled and he laughed._

_“Sweet-pea, you can’t act like that either, you argued with Marlon about his safe zone, he’s just trying o keep his people safe.”_

_“What would you have done?” I asked him and he thought a bit and sighed._

_“The same thing you did, I worried about you and Duck a lot when we were all together, I made sure both of you had food before us adults did remember?” He asked and I nodded at this._

_“I worried about AJ, and Violet was worried about Willy and Tenn.”_

_“That’s a good thing, I mean… it’s hard for me to explain.” He says as he scratched his beard and I smiled._

_“I know what you mean, being worried is ok, being mad is ok, even sad, it’s ok to show emotions… it makes you human.” I tell him and he nods._

_“Exactly, see you’re learning a lot.” He says and I nod and I frown a bit._

_“I wish you were still with me though… if I didn’t listen to the stranger, you’d still be here… I don’t know what to do anymore Lee.” I tell him as I sit up a bit._

_“You do what you think is right, and don’t ever blame yourself for what happened to me, I know you didn’t mean it, and I made things worse by telling you we couldn’t look for your parents.” He tells me._

_“But it’s all my fault, I should have listened to you.”_

_“Sweet-pea.” He says but I don’t respond and we just sit there and I look at the RV side door for a bit and I sigh._

_“After you died, I’d try to think, ‘What would Lee do in this situation’ but it’s harder for me to ask that because I don’t know what you’d think.” I tell him._

_“I’d always try to be neutral in these things, people don’t like it but I could never pick sides, but I’d always think about your safety, think about others safety, and AJ’s safety as well.” He tells me and I nod as things started to fade a bit._

_“I miss you so much.” I tell him._

_“I miss you too Clementine, and don’t worry, things will be hard but they’ll get better.” He says and I nod as everything fades away._

I woke up to the sound of people arguing so I slowly sit up and I hear movement beside me, so I turn to see AJ getting up as well and I look to the door then back to him.

“There’s sounds in the pipe.” He says and I get up slowly as I go over to him.

“I’m going to go check it out, you stay here.” I tell him as I hand him his gun back and I look to the door a bit.

“Stay safe?” He asked and I nodded as I grabbed my hat and go over to the door a bit and I open it. I hear the arguing get louder as I walk down the halls a bit and to a door. I try to open it quietly but it wouldn’t budge, I try to look for a lock but that doesn’t seem to be the answer since there in no lock.

“Fuck.” I mumbled as I looked around and saw the emergency map and I look at it to see there was another entrance to this room. So I head outside and look around to see some cellar doors but again to my luck it was locked. The wind was blowing really hard tonight and I felt just a few droplets of rain but not a lot, so I quickly search around the courtyard and I find a piece of scattered brick on the ground. I grabbed it and I went back to the cellar doors and looked at the padlock and wait for the noise to continue. When it does I hit the padlock hard doing some damage but honestly not a lot, I wait again and hit the padlock once more breaking it free and I tossed the brick to the side as I opened the doors and walked down the steps just to hear more arguing.

“We have to tell them about what happened.” I hear a female say as I walked up closer.

“Just shut up, no one will find out about this so long as you keep your mouth shut.” I hear and the light flashes at me and I step back a bit.

“Who’s there?” I hear and I move a bit and show myself.

“Clementine.” Brody said surprised and I look to see Marlon too.

“Just go back to bed.” Marlon tells me.

“I was asleep, you woke me up.”

“Sorry we didn’t mean to.” Brody apologized.

“What is going on?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Marlon tells me as he got in front of Brody

“Nothing my ass.”

“…. The guy we met in the woods, and the train station, we got history with him.”

“Brody.” Marlon says pissed.

“Wait what?” I asked.

“Nothing she’s just talking crazy.” He says and looked to me.

“If there’s an issue I need to know now Marlon.” I tell him and he glared at me a bit.

“There isn’t an issue.”

“Apparently there is, look I’m not mad or anything but this does need to be talked about.” I tell him and he looked to me.

“I just… look I didn’t mean to, we were just walking in the woods and, fuck everything went south I just.” he stopped and I watched him as he gripped his hand into a fist.

“Look, just… explain what happened.” I tell him and Brody looked to the ground when Marlon didn’t talk.

“We went out hunting like normal it’s not like it was planned.” Brody says.

“Brody.” He says a bit mad.

“Marlon, I just want to know what happened, you avoiding it is making you look bad.” I explained.

“Marlon gave up the twins.” Brody says and I looked at her.

“BRODY!” He yells and then he hits her in the head with his flashlight.

“MARLON!” I looked to Brody as she held her head a bit and blood poured down her face as she fell against the boiler and I ran up to her.

“Fuck I didn’t… I didn’t mean to fuck th-there has to be a first aid kit down here.” Marlon says scared and I look at him.

“You bashed her head; a first aid kit isn’t going to do anything.” I say as I look at her.

“Who?” She asked and I think as I quickly pick her up.

“Don’t fucking move her.” He says.

“We need to get her to Ruby you fucking idiot.” I say as I lifted her up a bit and she laid her head on my chest and I start to head out of the basement as fast as I could. The rain was falling and I look around. I then heard Brody mumble something.

“He-He said he was going to trade you and AJ to… to the raiders… I’m sorry Clem.” She says softly as I look down to her to see one of her eyes blown.

“Fucking stupid ass.” I mumbled as I head to the dorm but before I could I felt my jacket being pulled from behind and I’m tripped and dropped Brody and I look up as Marlon glared at me.

“ARE YOU AN IDIOT SHE NEEDS HELP!” I yelled hoping at least someone would hear.

“She just needs a first aid kit.” He says pissed and I glare at him then look back to Brody as I she starts to have a seizure and I go up to her as she just stopped and I listened to her chest.

“Fuck she stopped breathing, fucking Marlon get help.” I tell him and I try CPR just like lee did for Larry hoping it would work, I don’t know I’m freaking out I’m not thinking right.

“S-She’s going to turn.” He says.

“FUCKING HELP ME!” I yelled at him and he runs into the dorms as I try to bring her back. It wasn’t long till I saw some movement and I looked at her as her eyes opened but they were a clear milky white as she lunged at me attacking me. I had no choice but to look for a weapon, and the closest thing to me was a brick and I grabbed it as I hit her in the head damaging her brain as she dropped and I back away just as the kids were coming out.

“I told you she murdered Brody.” Marlon says and I look at him in shock as the kids looked to me all shocked and I glare at him.

“You fucking liar.” I say pissed as I get up.

“We just saw you bash her head in with a fucking brick.” Ruby says and I look at all of them.

“SHE WAS A WALKER, MARLON HIT HER IN THE FUCKING HEAD WITH A FLASHLIGHT!” I yelled over the thunder and pouring rain.

“Bullshit, you were going to attack me and Brody jumped in to hold her down so I could get you guys.” Marlon tells them and I see AJ walk out with his gun in hand.

“What is going on?” Tenn asked as he walked out and he saw Brody on the ground.

“Clementine killed Brody, she can’t be trusted, she has to go.” Marlon says as he come up to me and I hear the gun clicking and I turn to AJ who was pointing the gun at Marlon.

“What the fuck, he has a gun?” Aasim asked and I glare at Marlon.

“They both need to go, are you fucking kidding me.” Marlon says as he goes to AJ and I pulled him back and threw him to the ground.

“Don’t you fucking dare go near him.” I tell him.

“YOU ARE A MURDERER, AND YOU EXPECT US TO LET YOU STAY?!” He yelled as he got up and I backed up to AJ as the other kids stared at us.

“You’re a god damn liar Marlon.” I say and looked to the other kids.

“He gave up the Twins to some people, they’re alive but Marlon told you all they were killed by walkers, when Brody ratted him out, he hit her in the fucking head with a flashlight, I tried to bring Brody to Ruby as I was she said she was going to trade AJ and I to these fucking raiders and then he stopped me.” I tried to explain.

“You can’t be serous; Marlon wouldn’t hurt us.” Mitch says and I glare at him.

“Clem.” AJ says and I look down at him and before I looked back up AJ was shoved and his gun was taken away and Marlon held it up in the air and I was about to attack but he pointed it at me.

“Marlon?” Louis questioned.

“They met up with these so-called raiders, I’ve never heard of, strange man in the woods comes walking by after they arrived? And the same man comes to them again at the train station? Coincidence, I don’t think so.” He says as he looked at me and I glare at him.

“They need to go, Clementine murdered Brody, and then AJ pulls a fucking gun out on us, we kept them warm and safe unlike the adults, I pulled us all up when they left us, and this is how we get repaid?” He tells them and I watched him carefully.

“You’re acting like those fucking adults.” I tell him and looked to the kids.

“You killed someone in your own group and then try to place blame on someone else when they know what happened, this shit happens so much out there I’m so god damn use to it, so go ahead and pull the god damn trigger, kill someone else and then kick out a fucking five year old into a fucking walker infested world, or you might as well shoot him too.” I tell him.

“Marlon put the gun down.” Omar says and I watched as Marlon didn’t move his gun.

“I…. You killed Brody, admit it.” He says as he comes up to me and places the gun to my head and I just look at him.

“You aren’t intimidating me to lie about something I didn’t fucking do.” I tell him.

“Marlon what the fuck?” I hear Violet say as he put his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. Then AJ punched him in the gut and as Marlon was bent over I grabbed the gun as I shoved him to the ground and placed the weapon in my side pocket and lifted my hands up so the kids would know I wasn’t going to use it on him or anyone else, this tactic doesn’t always work but I’m not trying to look like the bad guy here.

“What the fuck.”

“Stop this now.” I hear them all saying as I glare more at Marlon as he looked to me.

“I’M PROTECTING YOU, ALL OF YOU!” Marlon yelled at them.

“By waving a loaded gun at people? That’s fucking idiotic I should fucking know.” I tell him and he looked at me.

“He’s a monster.” AJ says.

“The hell I am.” Marlon says as he glared at him.

“You gave my sisters away?” Tenn asked as he came up to Marlon and Marlon looked at him then down at the dirt floor as he started to cry a bit. I guess the guilt started to get to him as he nods just a bit.

“I… I didn’t mean to, I wanted to save them I swear I did.” He admits as he looked to Tenn.

“So you killed Brody?” Tenn asked and Marlon nods slowly.

“We all need to calm down.” Aasim says then I feel the gun move from my pocket and I see AJ holding it at Marlon and I quickly get in front of Marlon to keep AJ from shooting.

“The fuck is wrong with you Alvin Junior?” I asked pissed.

“He was going to hurt you, he’s a monster.” AJ tried to explain.

“Look at him, he doesn’t have a fucking gun so hand it over.” I tell him as I hold my hand out but AJ didn’t and I get pissed.

“Alvin Lee Junior, give me the god damn gun now, we don’t do this you know we don’t.” I say to him in a stern voice but he still doesn’t give up the gun and I just stay in front of Marlon.

“You said he killed Brody he admitted to it even, he even admitted to trading Tenns sisters and you say killing people is bad, he’s a monster.” AJ says and I glare at him.

“We kill walkers and armed people AJ, not unarmed kids who are already down, now hand over the gun.” I tell him as I hold my hand out but AJ just keeps pointing the gun at me.

“AJ, just give her the gun.” I hear Tenn say and AJ looked to him and I walked up and took the gun from him as I held it in my hand.

“You say to kill monsters, Marlon is a monster, you said he killed Brody, and yet you defended him.” AJ says to me pissed.

“Take Marlon inside, lock him in his office.” I hear Violet say and I hear shuffling as the rain calmed down and I looked at AJ as he glared at me.

“Are you good?” I hear and I nod.

“AJ and I just need to talk.” I tell the person not caring who they were right now as I kept my eye on AJ as he looked at me then to the ground.

“You said we kill monsters Clem.” He tells me.

“YOU DON’T GO AROUND TAKING THINGS OUT OF MY GOD DAMN POCKET ESPECIALLY A LOADED WEAPON….. Fucking hell AJ we have rules for a reason, you know to never do that.” I say and I hear someone come up behind me.

“Hey Calm down.” I hear and turn to see Violet.

“Cal-CALM DOWN?! Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I say pissed and she backed up a bit.

“He’s just a kid Clementine.” She says.

“A kid that needs to learn that rash actions have consequences, if he had shot Marlon than what?” I asked.

“Well he didn’t.” she tells me.

“Yea because I had to get in front of him, AJ knows not to take a loaded gun from my pocket.” I tell her.

“He thought to fast but he’s scared, and you can’t yell at him.” She says.

“I… You think I want to yell at him? I don’t but for fuck sake Violet, you and your fucking group didn’t grow up like I did, I was a fucking stupid kid when all this started and it cost people their god damn lives, I got two of my best friends killed because I didn’t fucking listen, one got bit and the other got fucking shot.” I tell her as I look to AJ who backed up a bit and I shook my head.

“Go to the room AJ, I’ll talk with you later.” I tell him and he runs off and I watch him then looked to Violet.

“Clementine, he’s just a kid, he’s going to make mistakes, he should be having fun and not worry about this stuff.” She says and I looked to her.

“What would you have done if he shot Marlon? Would you be saying the same thing?” I asked.

“I don’t know, all I know is right now I found out that he killed Brody and gave up the twins, and yea I’m pissed but I don’t know how I would have felt if he did shoot Marlon, but he didn’t end of story.” She says.

“No, not end of story, he’s not going to pull this stunt and get away with it.” I tell her.

“And what the hell are you going to do? Hit him?” She asked pissed and I glare at her and I clench my hands into fists.

“I never laid a god damn hand on him in that manner, and I never will, don’t fucking assume that just because I’m mad that means I’m going to hit him, I talk to him about it.”

“You were just yelling at the poor boy, Clementine he’s just scared.” She says.

“And you think I’m not? Had he shot Marlon someone in your group would have probably hurt him or put him in danger, I never want to see AJ hurt, I…. I don’t want to see any more people get hurt.” I explain and she looked to me as I unclenched my hands and I shook my head a bit.

“You shoot the wrong person and you’re the god damn bad guy for life, you know… that’s how it is out there, I shot this one woman… she had been taking care of AJ, I thought she was a bad person because they had him locked up in a locker, and she was in a group where AJ was taken to when he was a baby… I shot and killed an innocent woman, who was trying to protect him in this massacre that was happening at her home, I didn’t think twice about it as she turned to look at me…. I don’t want AJ to feel guilt for killing a person, I don’t want him to feel that way at all, especially at his age… he’s a god damn five-year-old kid, born in this fucked up world.” I say as I sit at one of the tables and Violet sits next to me.

“I’m the reason AJ hits people that walk up behind him, because of that day…. When I opened that locker… the woman’s blood was on the back of his shirt… he was so scared and he was only three years old.” I tell her and I looked at her.

“Clementine.” She says as she placed a hand on my back.

“I don’t like yelling at him, I never like yelling at him but I can’t control it…. I just… get angry because I don’t want him getting hurt for doing something dumb.” I look away as I watched the sun rising up and I sigh as I get up and start walking to the room. I knocked on the door lightly and then walk in as I see AJ looking at me from his bed and I closed the door and lean on it a bit.

“I’m sorry Clem.” He says and I look to him.

“I’m sorry too Kiddo.” I say as I come up to him and he looked up at me.

“I’m not getting my gun back am I?” He asked and I nodded as I sat next to him.

“Not until I can trust you with it again, AJ you know why I took it right?” I asked.

“Because I was going to shoot Marlon with it…. But he killed Brody, why would you let him get away with that?” He asked so confused and I rubbed my face a bit as I tried to think of an explanation for him.

“He didn’t have a gun AJ, he was no longer a threat and he was on the ground and beat…. We don’t kill people like that AJ, it’s wrong and you’d have to carry the guilt with you for the rest of your life…. Think about it, you wouldn’t want anyone to shoot me, I know you wouldn’t have liked it if Marlon killed me, and I had nothing on me, and I didn’t attack him until you did.” I explained and he looked to me.

“He killed Brody though.” He says sadly and I nod.

“I know…. I know.”

“And she didn’t have a weapon.” He says and I nod at this.

“And he’s going to have to live with that for the rest of his life, the fact that he killed one of his friends, and his other friends look at him differently now.” I tell him and I look at the window and I rubbed my eyes with my one hand as I yawned a bit from exhaustion.

“Didn’t sleep good?” He asked and I shook my head.

“No, but I have to stay up now.” I say as we both get off the bed and I hear a knock on the door.

“Come in.” AJ tells them and the door opens to reveal Violet, Tenn and Louis.

“We’re all going to talk in the music room… about what to do with Marlon.” Violet says.

“And you want us involved?” I asked.

“Might as well, you were there when he killed Brody, and you did say he wanted to trade you two.” She says and AJ goes with Tenn as I looked at the other two teens.

“Come on, Tenn and Willy will keep AJ away from the conversation.” Louis says and I nod as we all head to the music room and it’s only the older kids in there with Marlon sitting on the ground holding his head as he doesn’t look to anyone.

“Jesus, what are we going to do?” Ruby asked as we all looked to him.

“We kick him out.” Mitch says.

“Why would you do that?” Aasim asked.

“Because sending him out there is basically killing him anyway.” Mitch retaliated and I rubbed my neck.

“He traded the twins, and killed Brody, he admitted to it in front of all of us and he waved a loaded gun too, that thing was loaded.” Omar says as he looked to me and I nodded.

“AJ was going to shoot him; how would you feel if it was Ruby?” Louis says to Aasim and they all start to argue.

“Hey woah calm down everyone.” I tried to keep the peace but no one was listening so I whistled loudly and they all looked at me.

“Look we aren’t going to kick him out ok? I wouldn’t want anyone to go out beyond these walls.” I say.

“Easy for you to say, you never had someone in your group murder your friend.” Mitch says pissed.

“I’ve seen it, I’ve been there and I’ve done that, look I’m just saying, if he goes out there he’s going to die, and he mentioned trading AJ and I to raiders, meaning they are here already, and they’d pick him up if a walker doesn’t get to him first, then what?” I asked as they all looked to me and so did Marlon.

“Then what the hell do we do hu? Since you’re so knowledgeable about this shit.” Mitch asked pissed.

“Never said I was, and I can’t tell you guys what to do, it’s your home, I’m just saying we shouldn’t send him out there, lord knows I wouldn’t want to go back to that, it’s hell out there.” I tell him.

“We should Vote on what to do.” Omar says and I look at all of them as they nod.

“I vote that he leaves.” Mitch says.

“You can’t be serious dude.” Louis says.

“He killed someone in our group, he traded two of our people to raiders like nothing.” Mitch says to Louis.

“I was scared.” Marlon says.

“FUCK YOU MAN, I AUGHTA BEAT YOUR ASS!” Mitch yells and before he could go after Marlon I stand in front of him.

“Oh you want your ass kicked too hu?” He says.

“Mitch, calm down.” Ruby tells him.

“Calm down? We can’t let him stay here.”

“He was scared ok? People react different when scared I mean look at what AJ did, he thought Marlon was going to hurt Clem that he thought he should break one of their rules to keep her safe, I hate Marlon with every bone in my body but beating him isn’t going to solve the issue.” Violet says and I looked to her a bit as she says my nickname and then I look back to Mitch

“HE TRADED YOUR GIRLFRIEND VI!” Mitch yelled.

“YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT, BUT MINNIE WOULD NEVER WANT HIM TO GET BEAT, SHE DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO KILL WALKERS, AND THEY ATE OUR FRIENDS!” Violet yells and they all start to argue again and I sigh.

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” I shout out and they all looked at me.

“Look, how about this, Marlon stays, does hard work, is watched on, and can’t be given a weapon of any kind, the first time he messes up then we can throw him out, a compromise for everyone ok?” I asked and they all looked at me and nodded a bit.

“Good, now… Marlon, why did the raiders want kids?” I asked as I looked at him and he looked up at me.

“I don’t know… some war that’s going on I think, I don’t remember.” He says sadly.

“War?” Louis asked and I think a bit.

“War up north?” I asked and Marlon nodded.

“Shit…. God damn it.” I say as I take my cap off and slick my hair back.

“Wait you know about this?” Mitch asked.

“Did you know about this Clem?” Violet asked and I looked to them.

“These wars have been going on since I was thirteen the ones up north I mean, I heard of this place called wellington being attacked, then The New Frontier group attacked Richmond along with Prescott, then after I had left Richmond to find AJ it was attacked and so many other groups, I haven’t thought about it for a while cause I was to busy trying to take care of AJ.” I explained as I crossed my arms.

“Wait, you said you were part of the New Frontier, you were part of this war?” Violet asked and I looked at her and shook my head.

“No, I was kicked out before the wars, I heard about them when I was trying to head back south when I had AJ finally, people talked about it so that’s how I know about it.” I explained and she nods at this.

“Why take kids though?” Aasim asked.

“Children soldiers are the best you can get, easier for them to get in smaller spaces, and can guilt some people that still wouldn’t want to harm a kid, it’s an advantage thing, plus this guy Carver mentioned how the next generation needs to be stronger than the last, it’s the only way to grow up heartless these days.” I tell them and I place the cap back on my head as I think.

“So, Minnie and Sophie, they’re child soldiers?” Violet asked sadly.

“I’m afraid so…. Unless they were killed.” I say the last part quietly.

Fucking hell.” Mitch says.

“Look we don’t know if they’re dead, what we do know is that the raiders are here and they want more kids for their army, we won’t let that happen though.” I say.

“How do we stop them?” Ruby asked and I think.

“The school is already a fortress on its own, the walls the gate, the building alone, if we can get some supplies, we can make sure they can’t get you guys.” I say to them.

“There was some barbed wires in the greenhouse, but walkers overran it, it’s been boarded up ever since.” Omar says.

“Alright there’s one thing we can get, anything else?” I asked.

“If there’s any fertilizer and propane in the old science lab in the greenhouse I can make bombs.” Mitch says and I look at him and I nod.

“That would be great actually.” I think.

“We can head into the valley look for supplies in people’s homes?” Violet suggested.

“If we do that, we need to be extra careful.” I tell her and she nods.

“Alright, we can do this, plan things out as time goes and then just, work it all out.” Aasim says and we all nod and I look to Marlon.

“We should tie him up.” Mitch says and I looked at him.

“What do all of you think?” I asked.

“Just for now, until we feel like we can trust him.” Louis says and I nod as I look to Marlon as Mitch grabbed some rope and tied him up and I sigh a bit as we all head out. I look to see Brody’s body and I shake my head.

“We’ll bury her and have a funeral once you get the barbed wire.” Violet says and I nod then Ruby Mitch and I went to the greenhouse and I looked at the door as Ruby tried to open it and I look around as does Mitch.

“This is all just…. Fuck.” I hear ruby say and I look at her.

“I know, but let’s get through this.” I say and she sighs.

“I know I do but… knowing what Marlon did… Would he have traded all of us?” She asked and I look down a bit and then we walk to where mitch was.

“I don’t know, I can’t answer for him.” I tell her as we look for a way in and I see the roof and point to it.

“Up there, the broken roof gives us access inside, I just need a boost.” I say and the two teens nod as they help me up and I grabbed the ladder as I climbed up it.

“Just get in and open the door, Holler if you need help.” Ruby says and I nod as I jump down into the building and I look around to see a few Walkers. One of them getting up and I look around quickly for any weapon and I grabbed a shovel as the walker got closer, I hit it in the head with the metal half. The sound alerted the other Walkers as they got up.

“CLEMENTINE?!” I heard Ruby yell as I took care of the other Walkers as quickly as I could.

“ARE YOU OK?!” I hear Mitch yell as I breath a bit and I nod.

“Yea… I’m fine.” I tell them as I get up to the door and I remove the wood from the door and opened the door for them.

“Good lord.” Ruby says as she looked at the walkers than me.

“Yea… there was only three, thank god.” I say and they both nod and I go pick up the shovel.

“We should give that to the others, we don’t have a shovel at the school.” Mitch says and I nod as I hand it to him and he walked out and I look around a bit grabbing what I could.

“These would do wonders for morale.” Ruby says and I looked to her confused.

“For what?” I asked.

“Means make people feel better basically.” She explained and I nod at this as Mitch comes back and I looked at one of the old cabinets. I go over to it and try to open it, but to my luck it didn’t open and I sigh as I look for a crowbar.

“So, you really are ok with Marlon staying?” Mitch asked and I looked up to him as I grabbed a crowbar.

“As I said before I can not tell you guys what to do in your own home.”

“But you basically live here now.” Ruby says and I think.

“I honestly don’t know, it’s different here than out there, if we were not in these walls and he knew how to live out there, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought of leaving him on the side of the road, or shooting him myself…. But I have to teach AJ not to kill someone who wasn’t even armed.” I tell them.

“But he killed Brody, he tried to frame you, doesn’t that piss you off even a little?” Mitch asked as I opened the cabinet door with the crowbar which showed the barbed wire and fertilizer as well.

“Yea, I am pissed, hell I was more pissed when he pointed a gun at everyone, but AJ also pointed the gun at him… look my way of thinking is confusing, I never really understood things even when I was younger, I’ve picked up some very bad habits when I traveled in many different groups.” I say as we pulled the wires out and set them to the side along with the bags.

“Bad habits such as?” Ruby asked and I looked at her.

“Well, honestly I use to drink a lot of alcohol, I mean yea when I was eleven it tasted bad but I was alone and depressed and I was told drinking helped people, didn’t know it was in a negative way… I also smoked but had to quit that…. Oh, and bashing people’s faces in, trust me when I had my face bashed in I just started doing it to others.” I tell them as we looked around for more stuff and we get to a shelf.

“You what?” Mitch asked.

“What? The drinking, smoking, or bashing peoples faces?” I asked as me and him pushed down the shelf that was blocking the back door.

“The bashing face thing.” He says.

“Oh yea, when I lost my eye, I bashed the face of the fucker who damaged my eye…. When he was doing it, I felt like I was floating and shit, I was accepting death at that point.” I put my ear to the door to listen for anything but heard nothing so I opened the door a bit and walked in only to have a hand grab my arm and I turned a bit as I pulled my arm bad from the walker, ripping it’s arm of and I shook it off me as it landed to the ground I backed up.

“What the hell happened?” Ruby asked and then she froze as she walked in.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” I say and I watch her as she walked up to the walker.

“Mrs. Martin.” She says and I looked to her then to the Walker as it tried to grab at us.

“It’s a walker.” Mitch says.

“No, it’s Mrs. Martin… when all the adults left us, she was the only one to stay here… she taught me about medicine and how to patch people up.” Ruby says sadly and I looked to the ground a bit.

“Can you please… I can’t.” Ruby asked me and I nodded knowing what she wanted me to do. I grabbed my knife as I looked to the walker and I stabbed it in the head then looked to Ruby as I pulled the knife out.

“Thank you.” She says quietly and I nod.

“What other nasty habits did you pick up?” Mitch asked, trying to steer us away from what just happened.

“Uh.. cussing a lot, I use to tell Lee that swearing was bad, and I tell AJ it’s bad too, but I swore like a sailor, it was pretty funny too.” I tell him as we looked around more.

“I use to swear a lot too you know.” Ruby says and I chuckle.

“Really?” I asked and she nods.

“Oh yea, use to be a real asshole when I first came here, I punched a teacher in the face once or twice.” She says and Mitch laughed a bit.

“So how did you get sent here if it’s ok to ask?” I looked to him as he looked at the old chalkboard with symbols written on it.

“Use to blow shit up, that’s why I had the bomb idea, I use to make them at home when my dad got me a chemistry set.” He says.

“Neat.”

“Oh yea, well until I blew up my dad’s garage that is, that’s when I got sent here.” He says and I look at him.

“Bet you were an angel when you were little.” Ruby says and I nod.

“I was, well I thought I was…. I was pretty stupid if you really want to know.” I say as I looked at some old test tubes and I take a whiff of one and backed away coughing at the smell.

“Stupid? Girl you’re teaching us how to make this place more fortified and you lived out beyond these walls for years, you have to be smart to live out there.” She says to me and Mitch nods.

“I don’t see how you’d call yourself stupid.” Mitch tells me.

“Well, when I was eight, I was in the first grade, so I was held back, and I was just unfocused a lot, I was the kid that wanted to color more than listen to some teacher ramble on and on about… Bleh Math.” I say and they chuckled.

“But you grew out of it?” Mitch asked and I shook my head no.

“No, I’m still unfocused sometimes, it happens sometimes but that’s when I remember something from a long time ago but then again that’s a lot of people these days.” I tell him and he nods and I looked to a few test tubes on the shelf that was yellow.

“Looks like piss.” I say.

“Dare you to drink it.” Mitch says and I look at him.

“Oh, not in a million years.” I say.

“Woos.” He called me and I roll my eyes and I see the propane tank and we grabbed it.

“Awesome, now all we need it a ignitor.” He tells me and I look through the cabinets. I finally find an ignitor for him and we grabbed all the supplies as we head out.

“Wait, can we bury Mrs. Martin?” Ruby asked.

“No, just burn the damn thing.” Mitch tells her.

“Mitch.” I say and he rolled his eyes.

“Fine waste energy burying the damn thing, I got to get these to the school.” He mumbled as he left and I rubbed my neck as we grabbed a trowel and start to dig for a bit. After a good hour we grabbed the body and lay it in the ground and I cover it up.

“Thank you.” She says and I nod as we head to the school and I look around.

“They probably have Brody buried by now.” She tells me and I nod as we set the items on the picnic table and I turn to see some of the kids over by the graveyard. I looked to Ruby as she nods and we head over to the others as they looked at Brody’s grave and I rubbed my neck as everyone talked about her and I stayed quiet as they all left after a few minutes and I followed Violet.

“Hey.” She says and I nod and I stay quiet as she sighs and looked to the main building and clenched her fists then shakes her head as she goes to the maps on the picnic table and I come up to her as she points out some areas.

“I was there a few days ago with AJ, the place was overrun by walkers, but I don’t know if it still is.” I tell her and she nods as she marked the area as a possible place to look.

“Thanks for the help Clem… I mean you and AJ can leave anytime you want.” She says and I looked to her.

“Honest to god, I would be as bad as Marlon if I didn’t help you guys… anyway I’m the best when it comes to hiding from walkers.” I tell her and she laughed a little.

“Well so are we.” She says and I nod as we looked to the map more and make plans for tomorrow for a supply run and I think a bit as I see one place marked on another map and I point to it.

“We should check this place for supplies.” I tell her and she looked at it.

“A gun store?” She asked and I nodded.

“Look, you guys might not be a fan of them right now… after what Marlon and AJ did, but it’s a necessary thing, what if Mitch’s bombs don’t work? Bow and arrows can’t beat other with guns.” I tell her.

“Can we talk about it with the others?” she asked and I nodded as we worked more and I helped Aasim put the barbed wire up on top the school. It took a while for us to get it set in place and I looked to see how dark it was starting to get. I looked over to AJ as he drew with Tenn and I rubbed my neck a bit.

“Is it bad that I kind of wished AJ had pulled the trigger?” Aasim asked in a hushed voice and I look to him.

“I… why?” I asked.

“Marlon gave up our friends and you said he killed Brody…. When I saw her body I saw the indent that wasn’t caused by a brick hitting her head.” He says and I look to him.

“It uh… it’s hard for me to answer, I would be mad if someone in my group did that but… taking a life isn’t something AJ shouldn’t do, it… warps a kids mind I wouldn’t have cared if I was the one taking the shot but him.” I tried to explain.

“Yea… yea you’re right, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have hoped AJ would have done it… it’s just… Brody was a sweet girl, she had panic attacks like crazy and her knowing about this and Marlon making her keep it a secret…. He killed her because of guilt and it’s sick.” He says.

“I know… I’m sorry.” I tell him and he nod as we get off the wall and he heads over to Ruby and I looked to AJ again as Violet went to check on them and I looked at the drawing of the school as I add where the barbed wires were placed.

“Hey dinner time ya’ll.” Omar announced and we all take a break as we get something to eat and I looked to everyone as they kept quiet and I think.

“So, what else are we going to do?” Ruby asked.

“…. How do you guys feel if we got guns here?” Violet asked and everyone was quiet at the proposition.

“I’m ok with it as long as we have them locked up after use.” Aasim says.

“Same.” Ruby gives her option on it.

“We can get some locks and stuff for them, after all this is done and over with we can keep them locked up unless we all feel like we want to carry them more.” Violet offers and everyone nods.

“As long as Marlon doesn’t get one.” Louis says.

“Or AJ… at least until I can trust him.” I say.

“I trust AJ more with it than Marlon.” Omar admits.

“Well that’s up to me, I’m sorry but what AJ pulled was uncalled for.” I tell him and he nods.

“It’s your choice.” He says and I looked to AJ and I nod as I look back to all of them.

“Ok, we can do that…. I could probably find a vehicle, worst case scenario we might have to leave, so we need to have a meet up point at least.” I explain.

“We might have to leave?” Louis asked.

“Just in a worse case that’s all, it’s a precaution.” I explain and he nods.

“Alright.” He says and I finished dinner and we all get up and start to head to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos? Comments?


End file.
